1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image data management apparatus, an image forming apparatus and an image forming system.
2. Description of Related Art
JP2002-175241A discloses a printed material serving system. In the system, a host computer and a text file server manage text files and receive reservations for printing of the text files from users, and in response to a command from a store to output a printed material of a reserved file, the text file server sends data of the file to a printer installed in the store.
In a system wherein a server centrally manages data (for example, text data of documents) and sends the data in response to a command from a printer, the server manages other data besides the data to be requested by exterior printers. Then, the system has a problem that when the server searches for data in response to a command from a printer, the larger the volume of data stored in the server is, the heavier the load for the search is.